Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Roman Style*
BYRICHARD SHERR
llibataDei virgonutrixis one of the few motets securely attributed to
Josquin des Prez that has generated extended scholarly interest and
debate in the twentieth century. The interest thus far has been
motivated not primarily by the music of the motet, but by its textspecifically by the acrostics in the first and perhaps the second stanza
(Smijers 1925, Titcomb 1963, Elders 1969 and 1970). This essay will
consider the piece as a whole: what it shows about Josquin's approach
to a text and where it might fit in the chronology of his works.
Most published discussions of Josquin's music assign Illibata a
place among the composer's earliest works. Although there is some
question as to what "early" means in the case of a composer
presumably born ca. i440 whose music seems not to have entered
general circulation until the 149os, most scholars have suggested the
I46os or I470S for the composition of Illibata, dates which place the
motet within Josquin's career at the court of Milan (ca. 1459-ca. 1479).
The chronological designation "early"is based on an examination of
the musical style of the piece, coupled with the widely-held assumption that the existence of certain style characteristics in a piece of
Renaissance music allows one to assume that its was written close to
the time when those characteristicswere current.' Milan is the earliest
place of production of Josquin's music we can target.
The motet does indeed exhibit musical traits associated with the
middle fifteenth century. It is a five-voice motet in two parts, the first
of which is in tempus perfectum, the second in tempus imperfectum
diminutum. The fifth voice is a cantus firmus not derived by canon
* This article is an
expanded version of a paper read at the Annual Meeting of the
American Musicological Society held in New Orleans in October, 1987. I am grateful
to Louise Litterick for many helpful comments and suggestions.
I Brown (1976, 122) writes: "It is clear from the few motets that can be safely be
assigned to his Milanese years (1459-ca. 1479)thatJosquin began his career by writing
in the tradition of Dufay and Ockeghem. Dufay, for example, might almost have
composed the duos formed of long melismatic lines that open Illibata dei virgo nutrix
ILLIBATA
NUTRIX
DEI VIRGO
435
whose entry is delayed in the first part and which is clearly set off in
the first part from the other voices by slower motion. Illibata is thus
an example of a fifteenth-century genre, the five-voice Tenor motet.
In what is perhaps still the most perceptive discussion of the music of
the late fifteenth century, Wolfgang Stephan gives a convincing
picture of the development of the five-voice Tenor motet (Stephan
At the center of the development is Johannes Regis (d.
i937, 24-50).
ca. 1485) whose five-voice motets constitute practically the whole of
his output in the motet genre.2 With Regis the five-voice motet,
instead of an extreme rarity, becomes a regular (if small) part of a
composer's total output. Regis also changes the general disposition of
the five voices in his motets from "3+2" (as in Dufay's Ecclesiae
militantes)to the "4+ i" that became standard in the late fifteenth
century (see also Blackburn 1976, 38). These works provided the
general structural model adopted by Josquin's generation, particularly
in the matter of large form, and in the notion that the fifth voice
should be a cantuspriusfactus.The younger composers made their own
contributions, of course; they added the idea that the fifth voice might
be produced canonically or might be drawn from secular music or
even solmization syllables, and they tended to reject Regis's habit of
eventually integrating the Tenor into the contrapuntal complex,
treating it more consistently as a slow moving cantus firmus (Stephan
1937, 34).3
While everybody agrees with this assessment, few (to my knowledge) have
remarkedon how truly unusual such an oeuvre would have been in the later fifteenth
century. What would we think, for instance, of a nineteenth-century composer who
wrote nothing but wind octets?
Regis's motets actually represent various ways of dealing with Tenor integration; but they almost always begin with the Tenor in long notes and end with the
Tenor moving at the same speed as the other voices. A perfect example (almost an
experiment) of different ways of treating the Tenor can be found in Clangatplebsflores,
perhaps for that reason the most famous of Regis's motets. Composers of Josquin's
generation also tend to reject Ockeghem's five-voice model, as seen in his Intemerata
dei mater,in which the Tenor is fully integrated into the contrapuntal fabric (Stephan
1937, 37). The triumph of that idea had to wait until the adoption of the fully
imitative style of the sixteenth century. See also Blackburn 1976, 38.
436
ILLIBATA
NUTRIX
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437
TABLE I
Stanza2
StanzaI
i. Illibata Dei virgo nutrix,
20.
21.
Amen.
Illibatasuggest that it was not among Josquin's first works and was not
composed in Milan. Consider first the music in relation to the
structure of the poem, as far as it can be determined from what seems
to be a corruptly transmitted text.5 The poem consists of two stanzas.
The first presents the acrostic in twelve i o-syllable lines with a
recognizable rhyme scheme, the second seems to have a different
structure (Table i presents the text as Smijers construed it).
Josquin responds to the poetic structure of the first part of the
motet by articulating the 6+6-line, two-sentence text by a cadence at
the end of the first sentence. The first six lines, governed by the "-ix"
rhyme (Josquin is careful to make full cadences on G on that rhyme)
are also each complete syntactic units. In setting these lines, Josquin
s The two sources of the motet (Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana,
Fondo Cappella Sistina, MS I5, ff. 243V-247v (C.S. I5), and Petrucci's Motetti a
cinquelibroprimo [Venice, I5o8]) disagree in a number of places, and a completely
acceptable version of the text has yet to emerge. Noble 1972 accepts a number of
words that Smijers rejects ("suave"for "sit ave" in line 9, for instance) and omits the
redundant "cum sola" in line 19 (which has implications for those who would wish to
treat the second stanza as an acrostic). Because of the difficulty of resolving this issue,
my analysis of the text will not go beyond the broad outlines of its structure.
438
employs the long duets and sequences that have struck everybody as
being "old" and "Netherlandish," and he elides the ends and beginnings of lines. But even with the elisions, the musical phrases clearly
correspond to the poetic ones, so that the basic structure and meaning
of the first part of the stanza is made clear.
In the next six lines of the first stanza everything changes. The
"-ix" rhyme disappears, and the lines employ enjambment. Josquin
responds to this structural feature of the text by abandoning the long
duets and musical phrases corresponding to entire poetic lines.
Instead (beginning in line 7), musical phrases divide each line of the
text artificially into 4+6 syllables, and are organized in short imitative
groupings in which the beginnings and ends of lines are increasingly
confused (particularly in line io); this is, in fact, a musical equivalent
of the run-on lines, although it could not be claimed that it reflects the
meaning or syntax of the text.
The second stanza is more problematic than the first, but it does
seem to be made up of shorter phrases in the beginning and end (Ave
Maria . . virgo decoraand Ave Maria ... Mater virtutum) with longer
lines in the middle (Vale ergo . . . tua laude). There also can be little
doubt that the musical setting organizes the stanza into four clearly
delineated sections corresponding to complete sentences (marked by
boxes in Table i). In setting the second stanza, Josquin also left
behind the complications of the "Netherlandish style." The phrases of
text are set using duets, imitative passages and homophony, and
making all the sentences clear by coming to complete stops at the end
of every sentence-the "Italian style" that everybody has noticed. In
this second stanzaJosquin served both the structure and the meaning
of the text. In the motet as a whole, Josquin adopted different musical
styles to illustrate the structure of the text. This stylistic mix
surrounds a Tenor consisting of a three-note ostinato on the soggetto
cavatola mi la (from "Maria")that recalls, in its construction, the old
isorhythmic motet, but in a way that may go beyond even the
complexities of fifteenth-century isorhythm described by Damman
(1953) in his discussions of this and other isorhythmic motets.
The relationship between the Tenor ostinato and the structure of
the text can be seen easily when the Tenor is presented in the original
notation (See Example i). For the first stanza (where the text is
relatively regular), the presentation is straightforward: three statements consisting of three longs or nine breves, each separated by
eighteen breves rest.
The ostinato in the second part, however, reflects that part's
sectional structure in breves and semibreves that correspond to the
ILLIBATA
DEI VIRGO
NUTRIX
439
Example I
Tenor of Illibata dei virgo nutrix
Tenor_
I9i
Llibata
Seci~daPars
Tenor
I
|-
II
II
"
'
I
-I=
,-,
!=!
,u9I
3:2,
440
TABLE 2
[ ]
(3
42
Number of
Ostinato
Statements
4
6
3:2
4:3
2:I
I8
c
Tempora
(without Amen)
24
3:2
4:3
i8
16
48(24)
2:I
d
Tempora
(with Amen)
4:3 24+18 = 42
I:I
9:8
3:2 I6+48(24)+4(2)
= 42
I:I
Column a shows the proportions (of semibreves) caused by the time signatures
(comparing section 2 to section i, section 3 to section 2, section 4 to section 3, and
section 4 to section i).
Column b shows the proportions caused by the number of statements of the
ostinato in the 4 sections (again, comparing section 2 to section I, section 3 to
section 2, section 4 to section 3, and section 4 to section i).
Column c shows the proportions of the temporaof the sections in the manner of
Richard Taruskin in his provocative article of Busnois's MissaL'Hommearm"(1986,
270), comparing section I to section 2, section 2 to section 3, section 4 to section
3, and section 4 to section I, although we must agree that the final four breves of
the piece are a coda, which they clearly are since they set the words Amen.
Column d compares the temporaincluding the final Amen in section I + 2 to those
in sections 3 + 4.
ILLIBATA
NUTRIX
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441
Example2
Busnois, MissaL'HommeArm6, Christe
[C]
,.l
"
eley
[Beley
eley
Example3
(a) Busnois,MissaL'Homme
Armt(in the versionC.S. 14)
eley [son]
(b)Josquin,Illibatadeivirgogenitrix
sonos ut guttura
between the Mass and the motet, it might also mean that Josquin
wished to make a melodic reference to Busnois's Mass in the section of
his motet that was not based on the proportional model of Busnois's
MissaL'Hommearm6.7
All of this looks like a case for the "early"date of the motet, but the
situation is not so clear. We have in actuality no securely datable early
motets by Josquin that exhibit the range of procedures and styles
evident in Illibata (in fact, we have no securely datable early motets at
all), and it may not immediately follow that a reference or modeling
on Busnois must necessarily indicate an early work. In any case, we
would have to know first of all when the Busnois Mass was written
(or, more importantly, when it was first circulated), and we do not
really know that, in spite of all the theories. We would also have to
know when Josquin might first have been exposed to the work, and
we don't really know that either. But there is one thing that we do
know: when Josquin arrived in Rome in 1486, a copy of Busnois's
MissaL'Hommearm6was available in the library of the organization he
joined, the papal choir, in what is now Vatican City, Biblioteca
Apostolica Vaticana, Fondo Cappella Sistina MS 14 (C.S. 14), a
manuscript that, according to recent theories, was copied in Naples
7 I have seen the motive in similar guise only in another work by Busnois, the
chanson Quant se viendra,mm. 10-I 3 and 23-27.
442
TABLE3
The Sanctus of the MissaL'HommeArmi by Busnois in the Version of C. S. 14:
Proportions of Tempora
Section
Tempora
i. Sanctus [O]
36
Pleni [0]
27
2.
Proportions
4:3
3:2
3. Osanna [02]
18
4. Benedictus [O2]
12
5. Osanna [O2]
18
3:2
3:2
around 1480, and that was certainly in the hands of the papal singers
before the end of the reign of Sixtus IV in 1484 (Roth 1982).
Taruskin has made an interesting point about the copy of the Mass
in C.S. 14 by demonstrating that it belongs to a different tradition
than the copy which exists in the Chigi codex-a tradition that might
be labeled Neapolitan/Roman. One of the things that distinguishes
the Neapolitan/Roman tradition is the time signatures of the Christe
and the Benedictus (02 rather than C). As Taruskin shows, this has
important consequences for the proportions of the Mass (1986,
269-71). But consider what the proportions would be if the
Neapolitan/Roman time signature were included in the only movement of the Mass to have more than three parts, the Sanctus (See
Table 3 comparing sections I to section 2 and section 5 to section 4).
Admittedly, this may not be as satisfying as the proportions one
gets if the Benedictus is read in C, but it does make the proportions of
sections I to 2 and 5 to 4 of the Sanctus (4:3 and 3:2) exactly the same
as the proportions of sections I to 2 and 4 to 3 of Part II of Illibata (See
Table 2); in other words, if Josquin modeled the proportions of his
motet on the proportions of Busnois's Mass, then the version current
in Italy and preserved in Rome and not the one represented by Chigi
might have provided the model. Now, I would be the first to admit
that the theory that Josquin modeled his motet specifically on
Busnois's Missa L'Hommearms and that he did so in Rome is highly
speculative. But even if the Busnois connection turns out to be
unconvincing, there are other good reasons for associating Illibata
with Rome.
Consider the question of the genre of the motet in relation to its
usual assignment to the I470s and to Milan. If the Gaffurius Codices
tell us anything at all, they should tell us something about repertories
ILLIBATA
NUTRIX
DEI VIRGO
443
Gaffurius Codices does not provide a single piece that fits the general
five-voice tenor-motet model described at the beginning of this essay,
although one finds an occasional four-voice tenor motet or motet with
five voices. Instead, the vast majority of its motets are for four voices
and are in the "new Italian"style represented only in the second part
of Illibata. This would seem to indicate that in Milan there was no
demand for the five-voice tenor motet. Would Josquin really have
written in Milan a motet so at odds with the prevailing musical tastes
(as illustrated by the Gaffurius Codices), especially considering how
well he understood and adopted the Milanese style of the Gaffurius
Codices as witnessed by Qui velatus facie fuisti, Vultum tuum
and the MissaD'Ung aultreamer?On the other hand, as
deprecabuntur,
Gerhard Croll (1954, 243), and most recently Joshua Rifkin (1978)
have remarked, Rome in the I480s and 90s was a place where the
(all but one written by composers who were members of the Papal
Chapel during that period), indicate that the five-voice Tenor motet
was an accepted genre in late fifteenth-century Rome. The motets are
listed below.9
I96v-199r]). These motets, however, were written by composers who were not
connected with the papal chapel.
444
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Clangat plebs flores (T: Sicut lilium): Regis (Vatican City, Biblioteca
163v-i66r)
Dapacem (T: Dapacem): De Orto (C.S. 35, ff. 192V-I96r)
Dukis amicaDei (T: Da pacem):Weerbecke (C.S. 15, ff. 204v-20o8r)
Rexfallax miraculum(T: Apertisthesauris):Vaqueras (C.S. 63, ff. 7iv-75r)
Salve regismater(T: Hic est sacerdos):
[De Orto?] (C.S. 35, ff. I88v-191r;
196v-2oor [another copy])
served the Papal Chapel.' The text of Salve regismater, on the other
10
Given the text of the motet, I would agree with Dunning (and disagree with
Croll who thinks it was written for the pope's coronation in 1484) that the motet has
something to do with the dire situation in which the pope found himself in 1487-88
when the armies of King Ferrante of Naples were practically at the gates of Rome,
and there was real need for peace and protection.
ILLIBATA
DEI VIRGO
NUTRIX
445
Example 4
Opening of the motet Salve RegisMater (VatS 35, fols. i88v-19ir)
", ! ,
'
~"--
9:
sanctissima
-
,g I,6W I
..toJ
..
I--llp
! !
,t,
i
15
"
Hic
446
SOCIETY
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Example 5
Opening of the Motet Dulcis amicadei by Weerbecke
Ijvj
digna genetrix
hu
ILLIBATA
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447
Example 5 cont.
14
miles nostras
ac
fragiles
18
ad
te
Da
suscipe
FWO
.... ,-
P_ .
preces
, lJ
the chapel.12
SOCIETY
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448
Example 6
Opening of the motet Rex Fallax miraculumby Vaqueras (from CMM 78)
Primapars
Rex
cu-
lu
cu-
cu-
lum
Re-
Re- gis
*.
lax
cu-lum
ra
mi-
Rexcu-
ra
ra
mi-
m-
fal-
gis re-gnum
se- cu-
re-gnum
se-
cu-
lum
lum
lum
ILLIBATA
DEI VIRGO
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449
Example6 cont.
13
Per quod
re - pa
ra- vit
Per quod re
re-
pa
ra-vit
I"-
Per
quod
17
pa
re-
pa-
ra
vit
Sic
ra-
na- tu
ra
vit
A21
par-
Sic na - tu-
vu-
lum
ra
par-
Si- ve vi- ro
gen-
vu-lum
ti-um
Si- ve
450
Example 7
1ArII..
. .
.
I
mel
.,i
. ..
.
I
fr
.=
IIII
I II [
NUTRIX
ILLIBATA
DEI VIRGO
1978) ".
451I
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452
Example 8
Paraphrasesof the Tract Domine, nonsecundum
(a) Vaqueras, Domine, nonsecundum
non se-cun-dum
ca-ta
pec-
tra
quae fe-
ci-
nos-
mus
nos
1".
x.
ILLIBATA
DEI VIRGO
NUTRIX
453
Example 8 cont.
nonsecundum
(b)Josquin,Domine,
ca-
pec-
ta
nos-
""
~t----
tra
quae
v-~-
fe-
ci-mus
nos
F3ra=k#F.~~
of the Netherlandish style and the style he had left in Milan. And at
the same time that he was outdoing his colleagues, he included them
as well as himself directly in the motet. It is small wonder that this
work stands alone in his oeuvre, apparently had a limited circulation
(it appears in only two sources),'6 and did not generate any theoretical
comment; even Glarean, who delighted in telling tales of Josquin's
ingenuity, does not mention the acrostic motet (in fact, the acrostic
apparently was not noticed until Smijers 1925)It remains to be seen whether the hypothesis put forward here
about Illibata will in the long run seem more reasonable than our
previous hypothesis about its place in the chronological development
of Josquin's musical style. Two major objections can immediately be
raised: i) The Gaffurius Codices may not in fact represent all that was
going on in Milan (considering the number of sources that are
probably lost), and in any case may represent only tastes at the
cathedral and not at the court.17 2) Josquin was not continuously in
16 See
note 5.
As Bonnie Blackburn pointed out when this essay was originally presented, the
cathedral choir consisted largely of Italians while the ducal chapel choir consisted
largely of Northerners. Thus, the Gaffurius Codices, as representative of the
17
454
Milan even in the period ca. 146o-79, and apparently made a trip
north (to Conde, where he could easily have come into direct contact
with Busnois) in the 1480s before his move to Rome. Furthermore,
the chronological hypothesis derived from musical style is based on
venerable and extremely tenacious assumptions that sometimes turn
out to be correct. But we can only deal with what we have. Rome in
the 148os, with its predilection for the Netherlandish style and for
five-voice Tenor motets, provided both the motive and opportunity to
compose Illibatawhich Milan did not. A later Roman provenance also
supplies a better explanation for the eclectic musical characteristics of
this piece than does the notion that it was an early work. What the
study of Illibata Dei virgo nutrix may show is that place had as much
an effect on Josquin's musical language as time.
Smith College
cathedral, might be expected to contain more Italianate works, while court manuscripts might show that the Northerners continued to write in their own style.
Unfortunately, no court manuscripts have been discovered to date, so what they
might or might not contain remains in the realm of speculation. Furthermore, two of
the most famous practitioners of the "Italian"style were Compare and Weerbecke,
Northerners serving in the ducal chapel and not in the cathedral.
ILLIBATA
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455
APPENDIX
Domine, non secundumpeccata and a Roman Motet Tradition'8
The Cappella Sistina collection of manuscripts contains many settings of
the Tract Domine, non secundumpeccata, a text used in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries on Ash Wednesday and on various weekdays during Lent
until Holy Week (see the text of Domine, non secundumin Table 4a). The
polyphonic settings are preserved in sources ranging in date from the 490os
to the I550s, and include works by Josquin, de Orto, Arcadelt, Festa, and
other composers connected with the Papal Chapel. That there should be so
many polyphonic settings of a single tract is in itself striking. More striking
is that, of all the settings of the text I have uncovered to date (see Table 4b),
those in the Vatican and connected with the Papal Chapel account for the
majority, and provide what are perhaps the oldest pieces (the works by
Josquin, de Orto, and Vaqueras, all members of the papal choir in the 148os
and 9os).19
TABLE 4a
456
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TABLE 4b
De Orto.
3. Josquin.'
Concordances
Sections
3
2
4
4
4
4
2
Quia pauperes
Adjuva nos
4
4
2
4
4. Vaqueras.
5. Prioris.
6. Michot.'
7. Anonymous 2.
8. Anonymous 3.'
9. Beausseron.'
Anon;
Dominene memineris
Voices
4
4
4
3
4
4
4
3
5
2
2
4
4
4
4
4
3
4
ILLIBATA
DEIVIRGO
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457
TABLE4b, CONTINUED
Settings Connected with the Papal Chapel
Composer
Concordances
Sections
io. Festa.'
i i. Arcadelt.'
12.
Escobedo.'
Dominenon secundum
Domine ne memineris
Adjuva nos
Voices
2
3
6
3
4
5
3
4
5
Concordances
Sections
13. Martini.
ModE M. I, fols.
i. i
46v-49r, Io. Martini.
14. Isaac.
189 (Choralis
Constantinus, vol. I)
16. Lebrun.3
3
3
3
4
4
4
4
3
5
3
6
6
6
6
3
5
4
4
224v-229r,
J. lebrung
1535/2, Jacquet.
Dominene memineris
Voices
the motets are chant based, and there are similarities in the method of
handling the chant. In the earlier group of Roman motets in particular, the
chant is often paraphrased, but in such a way as to be recognizable to
anybody who knew the melody, and in later motets, written in a period
where non-cantus firmus imitative motets were the rule, the chant is still
used as a recognizable cantus firmus.20
More striking than these similarities of musical styles are certain similarities of text setting. All the motets are divided into three parts reflecting the
three-sentence division of the text, and special care seems to have gone into
the setting of the words cito anticipentnos (the end of the second part) and
2"
458
ILLIBATA
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459
TABLE5
Musical Events At or Before the Words
nosandPropternomentuum
Citoanticipent
Composer
propternomentuum
nos
citoanticipent
i. Anonymous I
2. De Orto
3. Josquin
4. Vaqueras
5. Prioris
6. Michot
7. Anonymous 2
8. Anonymous 3
9. Beausseron
io. Festa
Embedded in polyphonic
texture.
Full stop.
14. Isaac
Embedded in polyphonic
texture.
Embedded in polyphonic
texture, but the piece slows
down dramatically through the
use of long notes at "quia
pauperes.
Embedded in polyphonic
texture, but fairly distinct
because of three-voice texture
and homophonic writing.
Cadence.
Cadence.
Separate section.
17. Jachet
Embedded in polyphonic
texture.
Cadence.
II. Arcadelt
I2.
Escobedo
13. Martini
I8. Clemens
Separate section
Embedded in polyphonic
texture.
Cadence. Radical change in
texture (from 6 voices to
two groups of 3).
Embedded in polyphonic
texture.
Full stop. Change of
texture (from 5 voices to 3)
Cadence
Embedded in polyphonic
texture.
Cadence.
Cadence. Change of texture
(from upper trio to lower
trio of voices).
Cadence.
Cadence.
460
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TABLE6
ILLIBATA
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46 I
TABLE 6, CONTINUED
incipits,21and the care given to the presentationof the chant melody, the
betterto remindlistenersof the piece being replaced.
Actualuse in the correctliturgyeven suggestsan explanationof the way
some of the motets are transmitted.Of the eight motets transmittedin
C. S.35 (fourmotets)andC.S. 55 (fourmotets),for instance,six appearto be
in close relationshipto a copy of a MissadeFeria(a Mass without Gloriaor
Credo).In C.S. 35, two Domine,nonsecundum
peccatamotetsappearliterally
in the middleof one suchMass;in C.S. 55 the fourmotetsappearas a group,
followinga MissadeFeria,while anothermotet (in C.S. 63) comes beforea
Missade Feria. A Missade Feriawas the only type of Mass that could be
performedon Ash Wednesday. Given the close physical proximity of
Domine,nonsecundum
peccatasettings and Missaede Feriain three different
manuscripts,the suggestion is strong that the motets and Masses were
intendedto go together,andthatbothweresungon Ash Wednesday.In this
regard,it should be noted that, in his diary notationfor Ash Wednesday
1495, JohannesBurkhardcomplainedthat the Tract and the Sanctus had
been sung "in figuris,"a possibledirect referenceto polyphonicperformance.22
This referencecan be amplifiedby one from i578, which both atteststo
the traditionof singingthe tractin polyphonyandto the generaldisapproval
of masters of ceremoniesof that tradition. In his diary entry for Ash
Wednesday1578, FranciscusMucantiuswrote:
21 Chant
incipits usually indicatea liturgicalfunction. Incipitswere so clearly
associatedwith Domine,nonsecundum
peccatathat, when the VaticanscribeJohannes
ParvuscopiedMaitreJan'ssettingof the text into a CappellaGiuliamanuscript(see
Table 4b, no. 15)he addedthe incipit,even thoughone was not needed.
22
Cantoresnon cantaruntantiphonamExaudi,que etiamin libro pape male est
scriptahoc est incompleto.Cantorescantarunttractumet Sanctusin figurisetc.; et
male fuit, quia ab omnibusblasphematus.Celani 19o6-,578.
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The pope, after he read [to himself] the Epistle and Gospel and before he
descended[fromthe throne]for the verse "Adiuvanos," incensedthe Gospel,
becausethis was moreconvenientthan doing it afterhe descended(althoughit
had been done in a differentway by others),and immediatelydescended[to the
placewhere he was] to genuflect.The singerssangthis verse["Adiuvanos"]in
ratherthey shouldhavesung in
polyphony,which was seen to be inappropriate;
ferialplainchant,sinceit was a ferialMassand it was duringthe time of fasting,
and furtherso that [the words]could be betterunderstood.23
This late sixteenth-century concern for propriety and for intelligibility
may explain why there are no settings of Domine,nonsecundum
peccataby
major contemporary composers in Rome such as Palestrina or Victoria,
but it does seem that in the late fifteenth century and in much of the
sixteenth there was a motet tradition in Rome of settings of Domine, non
secundumpeccata, and that the motets were actually performed in the
correct liturgical place.
LIST OF WORKS CITED
23
Papa postquam legit epistolam et evangelium antequam descenderet ad
versiculumAdiuvanosincensuminposuitpro Evangelioquia commodiusquampost
descensum; (licet alios diverso modo factum fuerit) et statim descendit ad
genuflexionem.Cantoresrecitaruntdictum versiculumcantu figurato,quod minus
convenirevidetur,sed potiusdebuitcantarein cantuferiali,cum et missasit ferialis,
120).
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